India Wins Over England in Fifth One-day International

India has won the fifth one-day international cricket match against England in Leeds. India beats England by 38 runs in a rainy one-day cricket international to uphold the chance of winning the seven-match series. England gets over at 242-8 after 38 overs, short of its target under the Duckworth-Lewis method for deciding matches curtailed by adverse weather. Earlier, India cracked 324-6 from 50 overs.

England was at first trying to chase 325 to win, but lost three wickets unfortunately for seven runs in 13 balls as it baggy to 104 for four. Soon after the rain stopped play midway through the 17th over, England was chasing a revised target of 311 in 45 overs. But rain at last forced to end up the match. Rain Sunday forced play to be scored by using the Duckworth/Lewis method. India ended up a 38-run winner to lessen England’s lead in the seven-match series to 3-2.

At a point, England was actually well short of the Duckworth / Lewis par score on 242 for eight off 39 overs. India’s 324 for six marked its third top one-day international total against England. India now trails 3-2 and could a well claim the series if it wins the left over two matches, at the Oval on Sept. 5 and Lord’s three days later. It won the Test series 1-0 last month for its first conquest on English soil ever since 1986. All the visitor’s batsmen ransacked runs against an England hit missing injured bowlers Andrew Flintoff and as well with Chris Tremlett. Yuvraj Singh top-scored with 72 from 57 balls.

Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Gautam Gambhir too hit half-centuries, while Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Captain Rahul Dravid assisted well to uphold the run rate by each scoring 24 from 17 balls. Alastair Cook was sent away in the third over of England’s reply, before Matt Prior and Ian Bell added 90 for the second wicket. Prior made 46 runs and Bell strike 44. Prior and Bell were both caught by India’s wicket keeper Dhoni off the bowling of Ganguly, with Kevin Pietersen falling in the superseding over without getting a run. Paul Collingwood finished unbeaten at 91 from 71 balls.